IG. 112.--Rock-cut Stele from Kouyundjik. British Museum.]

Another type of stele in frequent employment was that with an arched top
and inclosing an image of the king. It is often represented on the
bas-reliefs[324] (Fig. 42), and not a few examples of it are in our
museums. When we come to speak of Assyrian sculpture we shall have to
reproduce some of them. We find a motive of the same kind, but more ornate
and complicated, in the bas-relief from Kouyundjik figured above (Fig.
112). A hunting scene is carved on a wall of rock at the top of a hill. A
lion attacks the king's chariot from behind; the king is about to pierce
his head with an arrow while the charioteer leans over the horses and seems
to moderate the determination with which they fly.[325] The sculpture is
surrounded by a frame arched at the top and inclosed by an architrave with
battlemented cornice. The whole forms a happily conceived little monument;
it is probable that it was originally accompanied by an explanatory
inscription.

This analysis of what we have called secondary forms has shown how great
was the loss of the Chaldaean architect and of his too docile Assyrian
pupil, in being deprived--by circumstances on the one hand and want of
inclination on the other--of such a material as stone. Without it they
could make use of none of those variations of plan and other contrivances
of the same kind by which the skilful architect suggests the internal
arrangement of his structures on their facades. For such purposes he had to
turn to those constituents of his art to which we shall devote our next
section.

NOTES:

[295] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. ch. ii.

[296] GEORGE SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, pp. 146, 308, 429. This lintel
has been fixed over the south doorway into the Kouyundjik Gallery of the
British Museum. When examined in place, the running ornament in the hollow
of the cornice will be easily recognized--in spite of the mutilation of its
upper edge--as made up of a modified form of the palmette motive, which had
its origin in the fan-shaped head of the date palm. The eight plumes of
which the ornament consists are each formed of three large leaves or loops
and two small pendant ones, the latter affording a means of connecting each
plume with those next to it.--ED.

[297] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 295-302.

[298] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 302, 303.

[299] Two much better examples of this same work may be seen in the
Assy